


everything that falls down eventually rises

by coloredink



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Wings, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M, Nothing is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Reverse Chronology, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's only cannibalism if they're equals," said Hannibal.  "Do we call the sparrowhawk a cannibal?  Or the peregrine?"</p><p>"You don't consider yourself human, either," said Will.</p><p>"Not quite human," Hannibal agreed.  "Not quite bird.  Something wholly other.  As are you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything that falls down eventually rises

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [everything that falls down eventually rises](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382568) by [Killde_Achilles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killde_Achilles/pseuds/Killde_Achilles)



It was the smell of dogs that convinced Will to open his eyes.

He hadn't really expected to be conscious ever again, and for a moment he wondered if the past 48 hours had been some kind of long, hellish nightmare. Maybe he was still in the hospital, still in the grips of the encephalitis.

But he knew that smell--now diminished from so long away--and the way the light slanted in through the windows, and the sag and creak of his crappy-ass mattress. Will pushed himself up onto his elbows slowly. His head throbbed, and his tongue felt like you could have struck a match against it. He was wearing pajamas. He was fairly certain he hadn't been wearing pajamas before.

Footsteps crossed the room toward him. Will knew who it was before he even looked up. Hannibal settled down in a chair by the bed. Will turned himself onto his back, so that he could prop himself up against the headboard, and the sight of Hannibal took all the breath from his lungs.

"What," he said. "Your--"

"Mason took them." Hannibal folded his hands together in his lap. "I believe Cordell's words were, 'Pigs don't fly.'"

Will hated the burning behind his eyes and the lump that swelled in his throat. "No." He hated the crack in his voice. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the stinging did not abate.

"Will--"

"You can, we can, can't they put them back--"

"No." Hannibal sounded tired. "It's been too long, and in any case he did an excellent job cauterizing the wounds. It's all right, Will."

"No." Will pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "It's not. It's not. It's not."

\-----

Will recognized the wings, before he recognized Hannibal.

Hannibal was seated in front of the Primavera, as Will knew he would be, with his back to Will. His tawny wings, even folded tidily behind his back as they usually were, almost brushed the floor. Spread, you would be able to see the black bars on the feathers; up close, you would see the soft down and the serrated primaries that allowed him to fly without noise.

Will came and sat down next to him. Their wings brushed. Hannibal turned and smiled at him, and Will, without any will of his own whatsoever, smiled back.

\-----

"The ortolan is an endangered songbird, raised in captive darkness its entire life and then drowned in armagnac. Plucked and roasted and eaten whole." Hannibal used a tiny pair of tongs to move one of the little birds to Will's plate. 

Will stared down at it. It stared up at him with tiny black eyes and little pointed beak.

"It sounds cruel," Will said.

Hannibal took his seat and unfolded his napkin. "It is. This dish originated in France, where it is said that people ate with veils over their heads, to hide their sin from the eyes of God."

Will tapped the bird with his fingernail. It rang against the crisped skin with a hollow sound, and one of the little wings scraped against the china. They looked so tiny and feeble without feathers, hardly capable of flight. Not, if Hannibal were to be believed, that this bird had ever flown.

"We don't," Will swallowed, "we don't eat birds."

"Not generally, no." Hannibal smiled across the table at Will, as if at some private and very funny joke. "But why not?"

"It's like cannibalism," Will said, his mouth dry.

"It's only cannibalism if they're equals," said Hannibal. "Do we call the sparrowhawk a cannibal? Or the peregrine?"

"You don't consider yourself human, either," said Will.

"Not quite human," Hannibal agreed. "Not quite bird. Something wholly other. As are you."

Will picked up the tiny bird between thumb and forefinger. Not far away, Hannibal did the same. Heat lurked in the little bird's breast, in Will's belly, behind Hannibal's eyes.

"Bones and all?" said Will.

"Bones and all," Hannibal answered. 

Will lifted up the tiny bird, pushed it into his mouth, and crunched.

\-----

Will arrived home--home!--to boxes stacked haphazardly on his stripped bed, on the table, on the chairs, on the floor. He hadn't realized he'd owned so many things. At least all the boxes were labeled: _Bedroom_ ; _Bathroom_ ; _Fishing Gear_. Will recognized Beverly's looping handwriting on some of them. He left those boxes for last.

There was a satisfaction in working with his hands, in using his muscles, that WIll had lost in prison, pacing back and forth in the same twelve foot by twelve foot cubicle each day. Satisfaction in shelving books, washing dishes, making the bed, flattening boxes. Tomorrow Alana would bring his dogs, and then home would truly be home again.

Some things were irretrievable: all of Will's fishing lures had been destroyed. A china dog had been broken. His laptop had not been returned. That was all fine. Will held his breath through several boxes of clothes, emitting a tiny noise of triumph when he found it at the bottom of one of them.

Will stripped and put it on.

It was like shedding a skin in reverse. Skintight and feather-light, Will's airsuit fit like it'd been made for him, which of course it had. Safety regulations demanded that airsuits be a bright color, like international orange or dandelion yellow, so that Aves were easily spotted by land or by air. Will of course had no taste for such theatrics, and he'd been able to get away with the bare minimum: a bright white suit with brick red stripes up the sides and silver reflectors on the sleeves and arms.

Will snapped out his wings, and the sudden wind scattered papers and empty evidence bags. He ran up to the second floor and climbed out a window he'd once exited while asleep. This time he was awake and breathing hard. The fields lay open before him, silvered with frost. Will spread his wings and leapt. He might have to stop and rest on his way to Baltimore, but he had a therapy appointment to keep.

\-----

"Will."

Will looked up. Alana looked at him through the bars, her face crumpled like discarded wrapping paper.

"Please stop hurting yourself," she whispered.

Will looked around, then down. His fingernails were stained with pink and smelled like blood. He still had a contour feather between his forefinger and thumb, one of the pale ones from the underside of his wing, downy at the base where it lay closer to his skin. He let it fall to join its brethren on the concrete floor.

"I didn't realize I was doing it," he said.

"Can I bring you something?" she asked. "Books. Paper. Pictures of your dogs."

Books and pictures were all Will was allowed. They wouldn't even give him a pencil.

He looked up at Alana again. Her red and white dress almost glowed in the dark, dank confines of the prison--excuse me, hospital. Will wondered if she'd worn it on purpose, to bring a bit of cheer to Will's otherwise dark, dank life. Her wings shone bright enough by themselves: luminous white egret wings. They were too small to fly. 

Will couldn't fly in here. He didn't even have a window that looked out onto the sky.

"No," he said. "I'm all right."

\-----

Will accompanied Hannibal to the hospital, waited as his wrist was immobilized and his ribs were taped, and drove Hannibal home afterward. Hannibal protested that none of this was necessary. Will did not meet his eyes and did not leave.

"It's a simple break," Hannibal said. "Two weeks. The ribs will heal even faster."

Aves healed faster than ordinary humans. Faster metabolisms. It was only fair, considering how easily they broke. The sight of the bright blue cast that stretched from Hannibal's hand to his elbow put a fist in Will's chest. Maybe next week it would be funny to watch Hannibal grumble and have to forego the jackets of his suits, but not now when Hannibal still had blood on his face.

Will parked in front of Hannibal's house and followed Hannibal's slow, halting ascent up the front steps. He hovered on the threshold as Hannibal unlocked his front door and pushed it open. His car was still at Hannibal's office. He could take a cab, or he could just take Hannibal's car. Hannibal shouldn't be going anywhere tomorrow, anyway.

"Would you like to come inside?" Hannibal asked.

Will shook his head. "You need to rest."

"So do you," said Hannibal.

"I hate that we're so weak," Will burst out. And then the words tumbled out one after the other, "I'm sorry. You don't want to hear this right now, you've had--"

Hannibal held the door open. "Let's not have this conversation in the doorway."

Hollow bones that could bend and snap. Air sacs that could be punctured. Wings that could be grabbed and smashed. It was a miracle that Hannibal had gotten away with nothing more than a broken wrist, a puncture wound in the thigh, and a few battered ribs. Will followed Hannibal through the front foyer and into the sitting room. Hannibal activated the fireplace and poured Will a glass of whiskey.

"You said, 'we,' just now," said Hannibal. "Do you feel that you're weak, Will?"

"Aren't we?" said Will. "I almost died coming out of my mother. My fragility broke her heart."

"You've never spoken about your mother before," Hannibal remarked as he handed Will his glass and took a seat by the fireplace.

Will took the chair beside it without much thought. "She disappeared when I was little. I don't even really remember her. After that it was just my father and me, and I was always getting into trouble. I broke half the bones in my body before I was five, and he had to work so hard just to keep me fed." He took a shaky sip of his drink. It burned on the way down. Hannibal hadn't poured him very much; he'd remembered that Will would have to drive, later.

Hannibal laced his fingers together in front of his chest. "Most Aves do not live past their childhoods, it's true. Many die in childbirth, as you nearly did. But that you survived is testament of strength."

"Do you feel strong right now?" Will retorted.

"I do," said Hannibal. "Think of how it feels when you're in the air, Will. Do you feel weak then?"

Will rested his glass against the arm of his chair and gazed at a point just above the flames. "No," he admitted.

\-----

The corners of Will's mouth pulled apart into smile or snarl, he couldn't tell. "My body's walking around without my permission; you'd say that's a loss of control?"

"Wouldn't you?" Hannibal set his cup of coffee down on the counter. He was bare-chested, still dressed in only his pajama pants, but somehow he contrived to make it look intentional. Every hair and feather in perfect order, even though Will had pounded on his door not twenty minutes ago. "Would you like to regain a sense of control, Will?"

Will shook his head. "Can't regain what you never had."

Hannibal spread his wings. Will took a step back; they seemed to stretch from wall to wall, shadows overlapping with Will's own. Then they snapped back, Hannibal shaking his feathers into place. "Would you care to fly with me?"

"Fly?" Will blinked.

"I know you've had a great deal of physical activity this morning already, but I think a flight would be good for you. Not only will it clear your head, but," Hannibal's lips twitched, "there's nothing quite like looking down from a mile above to give one a sense of control."

"I don't, ah, I." Will licked his lips. "I don't know if I can."

Hannibal raised his eyebrows at Will. "Have you never tried?"

"I did, a few times, when I was a kid," said Will. "They didn't go well. Haven't tried much since then. There didn't seem to be much point. Where would I go?"

Hannibal turned with a dramatic swish of his wings. "Come with me, and I'll show you."

Will followed Hannibal up the stairs and through a hatch that took them onto the roof of Hannibal's home. There was a smooth, flat area covered with some springy rubbery stuff in a bright, uncharacteristic orange. It mystified Will at first, until he realized that the color was to make it easier to see from above.

"How did you try to fly, when you were a child?" asked Hannibal. "Did you climb a tree?"

"Once. Another time I jumped out of a second story window."

Hannibal made an approving sound. "Your instincts were sound." 

"I always broke something," Will went on. "My ankle. My wrist. I stopped trying around eleven or twelve." Will remembered well the stormy looks on his father's face.

"You should have tried again around puberty. You might have had a different result then." Hannibal spread his wings. "Watch me."

Hannibal toed off his slippers, padded to the edge of the landing pad, and leapt. Will's heart leapt with him. Hannibal gave one powerful downbeat of his wings, then another, and another, and slowly, Hannibal began to rise. It looked laborious and hardly graceful, but then something happened--something changed--some breeze or updraft caught Hannibal and tossed him higher, and he was soaring. Will had to tip his head all the way back in order to continue watching.

Will had never witnessed an Aves in flight before. Hannibal kept his arms crossed over his chest as if in prayer or death, his legs out straight behind him. He paused for a moment, high overhead, and then began to dive.

Hannibal snapped out his wings thirty feet from the pad, flapping, flapping. Will stepped away from the center to give Hannibal more space to land, and he did, on bent knees like an acrobat. The wash from his wings battered at Will's face and hair.

"Now you," Hannibal said. He was breathing hard a little, and sweat glistened on his chest.

Will shook his head. "I don't know if I can."

"You can. You will. Your instincts are very good."

Will peered over the edge of the roof. It looked like a long way down. He felt something brush his fingers and looked down to see Hannibal's hand curl around his.

"Together, then," said Hannibal. "On the count of three--"

Panic rose up to strangle Will's voice. "Wait, wait, I--"

"If you fall, you'll drag me down with you," Hannibal warned. "Two, one--"

Hannibal spread his wings, and Will opened his wings as well. Hannibal leapt, and Will's feet left the edge of the pad. He flapped furiously, desperately, Hannibal's hand still clutched in his.

They were too close; their wings brushed and battered at each other. But they were climbing, together, slow and clumsy, higher than the roof, and then above the trees. Will let go of Hannibal's hand and pointed himself at the sun. His chest muscles burned. His eyes watered.

"Will." Hannibal's voice sounded far away. "Open your eyes."

He hadn't even realized that they were closed. Will opened his eyes.

"You can stop flapping," said Hannibal. "We've caught an updraft."

Will looked down. Spread out below him was a tiny, unreal toy town dotted with bland brown roofs and the occasional spangle of a landscaped garden. Hannibal's was only recognizable by the bright tangerine square on its roof. Here and there, he could see Hannibal's neighbors, insignificant figures walking to and from their cars or pottering in their gardens. Farther out, he could see a park and a school. It was different from looking through the window of an airplane: here he didn't have to ignore the press of a hundred and forty people in cramped coach seats around him. It was quiet, the air fresh and cool, and he felt part of the world rather than floating above it.

Tears lodged in his throat. By his home in Wolf Trap there would be a stark pale landscape, broken up by the black skeletons of trees and the dark, sinuous shapes of roads and streams. Here was the kind of peace he'd only ever found in a river.

"It's too cold for us to stay out for long like this," Hannibal said. "They make insulated airsuits for Aves. I can get you one, if you like."

"Please," Will choked out.

\-----

coda: 

"Oh, Will." Hannibal's voice was heavy with grief. His arms came around Will, one hand just below the bloody stump where one of his wings had been. "This was never what I wanted."

Will gave a sticky, blood-choked laugh and curled his fingers tighter into the front of Hannibal's sweater. He was cold. He thought he should probably feel more pain. "Isn't it? We're just alike now, you and I."

"No," Hannibal murmured. "I wanted it to be beautiful."

Hannibal was so warm. Will could hear his heartbeat under his ear. The cold had turned to numbness. That was a problem, he thought, but it wouldn't be for long. "It is," he admitted. "It's beautiful."

It didn't take much. He leaned, just a little, and Hannibal gave no resistance, and neither did the air.

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.wordpress.com](https://sumiwrites.wordpress.com/) (if you wanna see the books I've written)


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